Ms Informed Newsletter | Conservatorships, Disability Rights, and Britney Spears, again
Yep, we're talking about Britney again, and we're super pissed about how she's being treated as well as millions of people with disabilities. Disgraceful.
This week’s show
Shownotes
Ronan Farrow for the New Yorker on Britney Spears
Slate on conservatorship and disability rights
This week’s distraction
This week’s distraction is the absurd fact that this weekend Richard Branson and other wealthy billionaires launched themselves into space. Please don’t get us wrong we are all for advancing science and making new discoveries, but this is ridiculous. To quote Novara Media:
“The race to explore the cosmos has always been dogged by questions of equity. This is especially true now that space tourism is on the verge of transitioning from futuristic fantasy to obscenely expensive reality. For every spectacle of space discovery – from Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon to the mind-blowing satellite images of our solar system – there are millions of people left on earth suffering from a lack of resources.
Since NASA was established in 1958, it has spent over a trillion taxpayer dollars (adjusted for inflation). In the US, a country in which 4.5% of deaths in a single year – which amounts to roughly 900,000 people – were found to be attributable to poverty, extravagant celestial projects may seem a poor allocation of taxpayer money. Similarly, the Soviet Union was estimated to have spent the equivalent of $5bn on its Sputnik and Vostok programs in the 1960s, a decade in which it is estimated around 40% of the population were living in poverty.
While proponents of space exploration argue that it has an invaluable trickle-down effect on science and innovation, its critics say we have no business looking to the stars until we can guarantee the health and prosperity of all those on earth.”
Read more here.
This week Madhvi has been reading
Recently, I bought decaffeinated coffee by mistake, which resulted in a two day headache, fatigue and moodiness. That’s when I realised, that even with only one (very strong) cup a day, I was addicted. So I was super interested to read the Guardian Long Read The invisible addiction: is it time to give up caffeine? this week. Check it out.
This week Rina has been reading
This week Rina started reading “The Fat Lady Sings” by Jacqueline Roy. I picked up this book randomly at Do You Read Me last weekend. I saw that Bernardine Evaristo was curating a collection of novels and this was one of them. My Love for Bernadine and the interesting title was enough to convince me!
This Week’s Inspiration
This week’s inspiration is The Berlin Strippers Collective, a self-organised feminist collective of strippers based in Berlin. The collective was created in November 2019 and its aim is to create a platform where strippers can organise their event and create a source of income independently from explotative strip club managers. With their events, they want to open up a discussion around sex work, de-stigmatise the industry and advocate for its decriminalisation. At the same time, the collective is an opportunity to explore the creative side of the job and create a community and support.
The collective is now organising events in different venues in Berlin, but their ultimate goal is to open their own venue, that is aimed at being a dancer-run club.
Follow them on Instagram and Facebook.
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